13. Test Tube Babies

In the year 1978-80, modern medical knowledge had claimed that it had achieved a miracle in the history of human race. Female ovum and male semen had been fertilized in a test tube and was transferred into uterus. Thus, the first test tube baby was born.

Is this for the first time in the history of mankind such miracles have happened? No, ages ago, many such instances had occurred on Indian soil.

Let us first refer to Rig Veda; Sage Agastaya's birth is not from the mother's womb. He had been fertilized in a pot.

In Mahabharata, there are a few instances of childbirth similar to today's test tube babies:

1. Let us look into the episode of Drona, the guru of Pandavas and Kauravas. He was said to have been born only from the semen of male, without the female ovum in a vessel called "Droni" under the technical guidance and supervision of sage Bharadwaj. Hence he had become famous by the name Dronacharya.
2. King Drupada had performed a yagna to bring forth Draupadi and her brother Drushtadyumna. The methodology referred therein, resembles the cloning concepts of today.
3. Sage Gautama had created twins Kripa and Kripi by using certain vessels rather instruments. Hence they became famous by those names resembling the shape of the vessels.
4. We are all aware of the famous episode of the birth of Kauravas. When Kaurava Queen Gandhari had undergone self-abortion, sage Vyasa collected the foetus and preserved it in one hundred pots and thus could produce 100 Kaurava Brothers and one sister Dussala.

All these frequent references are not figs of imagination, but were the instances of the prevailing knowledge about the birth of babies, that are not from the mother's womb.